The document sharply criticized Spanish colonialism, but it also looked hopefully to the future. Responding to a missive from an unidentified Jamaican who had shown empathy for Bolívar’s struggle to gain independence (possibly the governor of Jamaica), on September 6, 1815, Bolivar penned the lengthy Letter from Jamaica, formally titled “Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of this Island.” Despite the repeated defeats experienced by Bolívar and his fellow patriots, his letter expressed an undying faith in the cause of independence. He also survived an assassination attempt by a servant who it was suspected had been hired by Spanish agents to take his life. ![]() After failing to unite revolutionary forces during a siege of Cartagena, Bolívar fled again, this time to self-imposed exile in Jamaica, then a British Colony.ĭuring the months he spent on the island, Bolívar sought to win British support for the independence movement. A civil war erupted in which Spanish and royalist forces-most notably the llanero (cowboy) cavalry led by José Tomás Boves-retook Caracas in 1814, ending the second attempt at forming a Venezuelan republic and forcing Bolívar flee elsewhere in New Granada. ![]() Most Venezuelans, however, remained opposed to the forces of independence. In August 1813 Bolívar had led expeditionary force that wrested control of Venezuela from royalist hands, earning himself the sobriquet “the Liberator” in the process and assuming political dictatorship. One of Bolívar’s most important pieces of writing and a landmark of Latin American political theory, the Letter from Jamaica revealed both Bolívar’s passionate commitment to independence for Spain’s Latin American colonies as well as an illiberal proclivity for oligarchical rule. Letter from Jamaica, Letter written by Latin American soldier, revolutionary, and statesman Simón Bolívar in 1815 while in exile in Jamaica in which he articulates his desire for Latin American unity and his vision of republican government.
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